FOUR-NINE: A BAY AREA LEGEND Copyright (C) 1993, Luigi Semenzato
When the horse show was over, I congratulated with my former
girlfriend for winning and drove away in the surfmobile (erroneously
called `car' by some people). To the east, the wind generators on the
crests of the hills were spinning. Somewhere among those hills was
the ultra-secret spot, the windiest and craziest place of them all. I
had never been there, and I didn't have a map. But the afternoon was
young. I reached the freeway. West was home, east was adventure. I
drove east.
Deciding what exit to take was a matter of intuition. I took the
wrong one. It was too far past the hills, and the road did not angle
right. I drove back one exit. This seemed better. The road followed
the bottom of a valley. I reached an intersection and I was out of
clues. There was a bar with several really cool motorcycles outside.
I parked and went in to ask.
The customers didn't look like windsurfers, so I didn't bother asking
them and went directly to the bartender. `Hi, excuse me, is there a
place where people windsurf around here?' One of the walls was
covered with license plates. I wondered where they came from, but I
didn't ask.
`There is a reservoir' the woman said. `Turn left here, then take the
first left, then turn left at the stop sign, then another left, and
then you'll find a sign and you turn left there.' My head begun to
spin. One of these days I'll found my own religion. I will teach the
faithfuls that to be at peace with the universe one must achieve
rotational balance. The stress that makes our lives miserable comes
from turning more times in one direction than the other, thus twisting
our cosmic link with the Supreme Being. The faithfuls will unravel by
spinning a lot during service. They will crash to the floor
light-headed and born-again, then we will all go to the beach for a
shredding session. I have it in the blood: I know it.
All around me, the wind generators were a forest from the dream of a
mad science-fiction writer. Tall or short, lined up in neat rows or
randomly placed, their stems were solid pipes or hundreds of small
beams bolted together. Most had propellers, some had funny blades
whose aerodynamics defied intuition. I turned left, left, left, left,
and finally saw the sign. I drove up a narrow road. The reservoir
was small but had many arms. Was this the place? There was no wind.
I drove around and found two surfmobiles, a hatchback and a pickup.
Their owners sat in folding chairs in the shadow of the pickup shell.
They were drinking beer. `Hi' I said. `Do you guys windsurf here?'
`When there is wind' the older one replied. He had a white moustache
and a sad smile.
`And do you get wind often?'
`Oh, sometimes.' The other guy smiled knowingly.
It wasn't working. I had to gain their trust, join the pack. But
how? In a flash, I knew. In a strange and mysterious way, I was
already one of them. I uttered the words: `Do you guys know a fellow
named Henrik? He is German. I think he used to come here a lot.'
The white moustache trembled. `You know Four-Nine?'
`Yes, I know Henrik. But I haven't talked to him in a while.' It was
true. I had spoken to him once on the phone, trying to organize a
joint expedition; but he was too busy with his helicopter lessons.
Then he had gone back to Germany; and the last time we exchanged
e-mail, before he disappeared, he was in Scotland. These details
could wait. Their turn now.
`That fellow was really something! You know, we would be all sitting
here, waiting for the wind, nothing to say, and he would arrive: and
all of a sudden we would be joking, laughing, having a lot of fun. He
was really something. How do you know him?'
`Mostly through electronic mail. There is a windsurfing group, do you
know about it?'
`No, no... good old Four-Nine. He was really something.'
`I can send him a message from you, if you'd like it.'
`Oh, sure. Tell him the Mayor says hello.'
`Are you the Mayor?'
`Yes, I am the Mayor of this place' he said proudly.
`And when does the wind come up, Mayor?'
The ice was broken. `Sometimes earlier, sometimes later. It's hard
to predict. Once it starts, it blows until after sunset. And it
BLOWS! Man, does it blow! We get lots of three-oh and three-five
days. It's survival sailing out there. See that channel?'
An arm of the reservoir disappeared around a low hill. `Yes.'
`If you go too deep inside, you can't come back. When it blows, the
pumps start. The channel gets a four miles per hour current, and
little wind. You are stuck. You must go to the shore and walk.'
`I see. What pumps?'
`The acqueduct starts here. But Four-Nine never got in trouble. He
was too good. Do you know why we called him Four-Nine?'
`Why?' I knew, but I wanted to hear it from them.
`Because that's all he rigged! He would arrive and we would be
rigging our three-ohs and our three-fives and we would ask him: So
what are you rigging today, Henrik? And he would say: A four-nine.
And we would all laugh, and we would be in a really good mood. But
then he could actually sail it. He was good. It's survival sailing,
I tell you.'
More people arrived, and I was introduced as `a friend of Four-Nine.'
They offered me drinks and peanuts. They explained how the wind was
coming at a funny angle that day, and perhaps it wasn't going to blow:
and they pointed to two large generators, one on each side of the
narrow lake, whose blades weren't moving. `See them propellers, the
big ones? They start automatically when the wind is above twenty
miles per hour. If they are not spinning, rig big, or don't rig at
all.'
`Can you tell if there is wind without coming all the way here?'
`Not really. You can only make a good guess. A fellow who works for
the electric company comes here when the windmills generate so and so
megawatts, or more. But even that is not always reliable.'
`And where is the closest telephone?'
`There is a bar a few miles from here, near the freeway.'
`Oh yes, I know that bar.' A small guy had rigged a six-oh on the
lawn. People looked at their watches and were beginning to leave.
The six-oh sailor went in the water. He planed in the gusts. It just
wasn't happening. Soon I was alone on the shore, and for a while I
watched the sailor pump, plane, jibe, pump, plane, jibe, never a
mistake. But the large windmills still weren't moving. I left with a
single regret. I had forgotten to ask the Mayor a very important
question: did Four-Nine own a smaller sail? I wonder if I'll ever
know.